[Borges]

This is the guy who Paul Newman played in Exodus.

[goldstategop]

The real life ship was forced to return not to Cyprus but to Germany where the Jewish DP's were violently evicted by British troops and forced back into the camps they sought to flee. It severely undermined Britain's attempt to keep the Palestine Mandate going when they violated both its letter and spirit.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[PAR35]

Prior to, and immediately after, the beginning of World War II, the Nazis were willing to allow Jews to leave to go to Palestine. It was the British who tried, with some success, to interdict that path, leading to the Holocaust.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]

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[Esther Ruth]

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125976

Published: 04/27/08, 10:30 AM

Yossi Harel, Commander of ‘Illegal’ Pre-State Aliyah, Dies at 90

by Ezra HaLevi

(IsraelNN.com) Yossi Harel, who commanded four ships bringing Jews to Israel illegally, died at the age of 90 in Tel Aviv Saturday.

Harel assisted 24,000 Jews in reaching Israel aboard four ships, including the famed SS Exodus, between 1945 and 1948. Great Britain, which controlled the region at the time, banned Jewish immigration due to Arab pressure. The other three ships were called Knesset Yisrael (Gathering of Israel), Atzma’ut (Independence) and Kibbutz Galuyot (Ingathering of the Exiles).

The Exodus was made famous by a film of the same name.

Born in 1919, Harel was the sixth generation in his family born in Jerusalem. At the age of 15 he joined the pre-state Hagana defense force. By the age of 28 he oversaw the clandestine immigration operations bringing Jews, many of them survivors of the Holocaust, to the Holy Land.

Later on, Harel oversaw the IDF’s Unit 131, an intelligence unit that ran a spy ring in Egypt until the so-called Lavon Affair of 1954.